


where in the world is warren kepler?

by cherubique



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), SI-5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 14:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22137856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherubique/pseuds/cherubique
Summary: Jacobi reminiscences painfully on his relationship with Kepler- and whether or not he ever truly knew the man behind the name.
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi/Warren Kepler
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	where in the world is warren kepler?

It’s nothing personal, that’s the worst part of it. Kepler carries with him a severe detachment, a cool professionalism that is this side of fucking _infuriating_. Alongside every step in this relationship that feels more fencing match than love- redolent with parries, sidesteps, dancing around the innumerous issues resurfacing from both of your pasts, the light flicks of a blow that punctures right to the point sans broad, telegraphed strokes with a startlingly savage ferocity: you have always felt caught off guard. 

He has always been just one step ahead of you. That professionalism sits snug across his face, and you want to dig your thumbs into it and crack that mask right off, while screaming that _there has to be something more than this._ There has to be more than: a bland corporate smile, his warmly ironed dress shirts, crisp black slacks that cuff perfectly to a stop above his polished boots, the touch of gray at his temples like he’s not a vain enough man to care much about his looks- at sharp odds with his clean, pristine appearance, his warm laugh that’s empty behind the eyes. 

You’ve never known the man who Warren Kepler was, before- before Goddard Futuristics grabbed him by the throat and held him aloft. Before he became the golden boy, the head of Special Intelligence- a man whose favour was highly sought after, and his bestowing it upon you felt like as warm as Tennessee in full blown summer. The man with soft eyes and membership in a funk band with friends from college that’ve been gone for so long they might as well have never existed to begin with, the man who didn’t hesitate when Mr. Cutter offered him power at the expense of his humanity, leather soles slick after trodding his way up the corporate ladder on top of the squashed faces of fallen sacrificial lambs. He has never looked back, not once. That man’s a stranger, to you, and he’s always been careful to keep it that way- so careful you never once noticed, up until it was too late.

You don’t know Kepler.

You never did. 

What you know is the shell of a man that Goddard has paraded around under the same name: a stolen identity. You’re desperate to hold onto the bits and pieces that hint at something more than a warm body in a well fitted uniform: that aching, warm voice that makes you want to sink into it like heady honeyed afternoons, the expanse of laughter just imperfect enough to not be choreographed as it breaks at its height. The stories that he won’t shut the hell up about, voice prattling on like chatty southern brooks, in his voice that’s higher than you’d expect from a man like him: full force, all ache. 

All those years. All those months. Those weeks, those days- all blurring together into one another ceaselessly. All along, we were all mere props- actors flitting across a silvered screen, Alana Maxwell and Daniel Jacobi, playing the leading roles of evil fucking sidekicks kowtowing beneath the company line, lead by the movie star handsome Warren Kepler in his chipped cowboy hat and ridiculous spurs at corporate Halloween parties, your eyes lingering too long on the strappy chaps and unbuttoned collared shirt and glimpsed collarbones, his eyes catching yours and locking. 

Didn’t his touch mean something?

Didn’t it suggest more?

His lingering hand, callused and rasping gently on your shoulder? The stroke of his scarred thumb- _to make a long story short…_ across your jawline, the dip of his fingers hooking into your warmly wet, hungry mouth- wasn’t there something more? In that sparking frisson down your spine, didn’t it mean a momentary rupture in the facade you were convinced he put up for everyone but you, in those long nights spent in hotel rooms abroad- Alana awkwardly knowing to avoid knocking on the door when his red silk tie was wrapped around the handle, a daring proclamation of what was smothered between the sheets, her eyes skirting over the two of you at breakfast as she tried at empty conversations, hollow and bright in their cheer? 

You can see him there, now, in your mind’s eye. He’s smoking. Kepler’s sitting on the edge of the bed like he’s already ready to leave you. You’re smothered in the blankets with your dark hair a damn mess, breathing hard, panting like an animal after a fight for your life. Meanwhile, his squared nail flicks open the metal casing of a zippo like he’s practiced it a hundred times before. There’s a kitschy war slogan dug into the face of it- whether it’s ironic or not, you don’t know: it glints like a memento of service. He sparks the flame to life, dips the cigarette slouched between his lips down to kiss it, and then he’s smoking. He’s smoking, and he’s holding the cigarette pinched in between both of his fingers as he exhales smoke out of his nose like a dragon, and your heart is cracking right into two and breaking at the seams all over again in atrium-valve-ventricle. 

There’s smoke clouding his face, and his head- and it lingers, oily and sticky. It’ll cloy to the hotel room’s ceiling and walls, and they’ll reek of nicotine long after he’s gone: the same way he’s still haunting the back of your head, years on. 

His expression is obscured- he might as well be any ordinary businessman off of Wall Street, flipping through a daily newspaper with a cool detachment, the most heat in his expression a bland moue of distaste at stock market fluctuations while he sits there, on some weathered old park bench near Central, completely at home in the anonymity of New York City, where you can’t walk half a minute without bumping into someone who knows someone who knows someone, a chain of unending ghosts linked together by flimsy connection. You think he would have liked the city.

He’s in half undone Armani and a crumpled white undershirt that’s rusting through with blood from where your nails dug in. You shredded the skin over his shoulder blades, where wings might have unfurled out of in another lifetime. You hadn’t realized the extent of it, the stinging shreds of skin like ribbons, touched in red- you were so desperate to leave a mark on that cold, cold man. Maybe you wanted to see if marble could really weep. You’re choked up, tears biting at the corner of your eyes, and you’re turning away, sheets rustling: unable to bear looking at him.

Because the question at the end of the day is: did he ever love you?

And how could he, you know?

You’ve never known Warren Kepler.


End file.
